LAKELAND — Lucretia Quintanilla and a dozen of her closest relatives rode out Hurricane Irma in the comfort of a Lakeland hotel rather than remain in their mobile homes.

All went extremely well, she said, until the fire alarm went off shortly past midnight Monday at the Imperial Swan Hotel & Suites on South Florida Avenue.

Awakened from her slumber, Quintanilla of Lakeland and other hotel guests scurried about in the hallways, unsure of what to do.

“We were thinking there’s a hurricane (raging), how are we going to get out?” she said. “It was scary.”

Attentive employees quickly calmed frayed nerves, Quintanilla said, and word spread that the alarm was triggered by water pouring in from the hotel’s top floor, where a number of windows had been smashed.

Irma did more than break windows fronting the hotel’s seventh-floor banquet facility. Gusty winds stripped a large section of siding and insulation from the hotel’s exterior, forcing the occupants of at least eight rooms to relocate, said Rob Fredericks, general manager of the Swan.

Things did get a little crazy in the middle of the night, he said, but he credited his staff for attending to damages and keeping guests informed and comfortable.

“I really want to thank my staff,” Fredericks said Monday afternoon as he surveyed damage to the hotel’s exterior. “They have their homes and families (but everyone stayed on site overnight).”

All 169 hotel rooms had been booked by Sept. 5 in advance of Irma’s arrival, with some guests coming from the East Coast.

The Swan was not accepting any more reservations as of Monday, allowing for a full assessment of damages, Fredericks said.

Some guests who were forced to evacuate their rooms were able to move into other hotel quarters that were vacated by guests returning to their homes.

But some of the Swan’s guests remained in place rather than return to homes darkened by lost power.

Such was the case with Gary Kempley, 65, of Mulberry, and his mother, Kay, 91, who booked a room as a safety precaution, rather than stay in their double-wide manufactured home.

Other than the false fire alarm, the hotel turned out to be a serene oasis during the storm, Gary Kempley said, though he was a bit upset that Monday morning’s breakfast buffet was mostly depleted by the time he and his mother made it downstairs.

The two returned home to pick up some bread and other food supplies, deciding to spend at least another night at the Swan. There was no damage to their manufactured home, he said, but the hotel had power — and air-conditioning, while his home did not.